Entrepreneurial Idea

[Talroth]

Self Help and Home Repair are the same thing, aren't they?

Self help, as in, "You are NOT a worthless sack of scum that sits on your couch all day, you CAN do whatever you set your mind to if you buy this book that contains nothing more than pages telling you to get off your couch and actually try doing something",...

Not "self help" as in how to repair a roof.

[waldronate]

That's completely different, then.

[loongtim]

Start with a blog about writing fantasy and/or sci-fi - world creation, magic systems, starflight, blah, blah, blah. Offer a free email newsletter with *premium content* (this is how you build a list of potential customers). After building an audience via email/rss, launch an ebook about how to write fantasy fiction and pimp it out to your email list for $19. This will be easy to write, because you just rehash what you already wrote on your blog but add some more detail and organization. A few months later, launch a membership site where you charge a monthly fee to get online instruction, coaching and peer interaction. $47/month sounds good. Next year, you'll develop a software that facilitates your writing method and sell that for $89...wait, where's the profit in that? Make the software an online app with a freemium model so you can charge a monthly fee to upgraded services! All the while, continue to send emails to your list and promote other people's products where you get an affiliate commission. Rinse, repeat, etc. This is what all the Internet marketers who sell info-products do... Make a product a lot of people want (everyone wants to write a novel, right?), take advantage of their insecurities, promise them the moon, laugh all the way to the bank.

[Karro]

I would have to go with quality of product when dealing with an off media, as being the biggest problem. We all know games based off movies have a history of being terrible, and movies based off books tend to leave the readers frustrated and annoyed.

The solution to this would be having all of this done in house, using the same creative minds in all aspects of production. Obviously you aren't going to have the writer of the series being forced to handle all aspects of game production and movie proofing, but if that writer had a team of the most die hard fans acting as a quality check on the different products, then that would probably result in far better products. Of course the downside of that could be that the QA people were too picky and the products took too long to release.

To some extent George Lucas did this with Lucas Films and LucasArts, which allowed him to retain control of the games based off his movies and IP instead of just signing over the rights to some 3rd party and having a crap game released.

See... that was the theory behind the business idea I originally posted about... only, rather than just doing my own stuff, I'd offer the service of managing the IPs to other folks who didn't have time to produce other takes on their own work, but wanted good quality takes on it. The problem is... (a) you have to earn a reputation for doing something like that and (b) I'm not really sure in that model who the customer is and how to monetize the transactions.

The people who made the 'Magic - the Gathering' Cardgame who went on to become 'Wizards of the Coast' did quite well for themsleves. a model to follow perhaps?

Good model for them... not sure how you start from scratch and compete against that behemoth. It kind of relies on coming up with a revolutionary and instantly-popular new product category that appeals to sci-fi/fantasy types. I'm trying to take existing ideas and find new ways of applying them in the marketplace, but if I could come up with a revolutionary new product, I would.

Hook the tweeners, hook the world...or at least make a lot of money.

Hmm. what do geeky tweeners like?

One thing that has been bugging me is the whole idea of a Sci-fi/Fantasy section,... Those are two different sections, like a self help/home repair section.

Well... quite honestly, once you start subdividing the super-genre of "Speculative Fiction", you can break it down into a lot more than just Sci-fi vs. Fantasy. And you're burdened by a huge gray area of overlap between even just those two genres. Fact is, this category of genres is all about genre-blending and genre-bending and trying to do something that hasn't been done before, which makes it hard to categorize individual works.

That being said, I see a lot of bookstores make a distinction between SF versus Fantasy, but the two still sit next to eachother. This bookshelf SF, this bookshelf Fantasy.

I've read where fiction writers trying to break in various genre is a tough life, unless you've got some great material, the timing is right and you have a good publisher to work with, however, once they start getting work writing sci-fi, fantasy and horror, these writers get "type cast" as sci-fi/fantasy writers only. Now if they had plans to expand upon wider literary horizons, its harder to do, since you're already known as a sci-fi/fantasy writer.

On the positive side, as already been hinted in this thread, sci-fi/fantasy covers a huge amount of material, scenarios, all real and imagined history to work with. You can write sci-fi/fantasy westerns, historic, comedy, romance, parody, high adventure, erotica, drama, the available material is endless.

While Vampire/Romance is not my cup of tea, I don't begrudge the genres from being able to support that fringe as well. Our favorite genres cover everything.

GP

Agreed. That's why I love it.

Start with a blog about writing fantasy and/or sci-fi - world creation, magic systems, starflight, blah, blah, blah. Offer a free email newsletter with *premium content* (this is how you build a list of potential customers). After building an audience via email/rss, launch an ebook about how to write fantasy fiction and pimp it out to your email list for $19. This will be easy to write, because you just rehash what you already wrote on your blog but add some more detail and organization. A few months later, launch a membership site where you charge a monthly fee to get online instruction, coaching and peer interaction. $47/month sounds good. Next year, you'll develop a software that facilitates your writing method and sell that for $89...wait, where's the profit in that? Make the software an online app with a freemium model so you can charge a monthly fee to upgraded services! All the while, continue to send emails to your list and promote other people's products where you get an affiliate commission. Rinse, repeat, etc. This is what all the Internet marketers who sell info-products do... Make a product a lot of people want (everyone wants to write a novel, right?), take advantage of their insecurities, promise them the moon, laugh all the way to the bank.

Hmm. Is there a way to do this without being evil? Also... I don't know how many people would care that much about a "how to publish your novel" self-help from some dude that's never published a novel.

[loongtim]

Hmm. Is there a way to do this without being evil? Also... I don't know how many people would care that much about a "how to publish your novel" self-help from some dude that's never published a novel.

Absolutely, it could be done without being evil. But since I'm in Internet marketing, I'm justifiably jaded by all the hype and over-exaggeration that accompanies many such info-products.

To get around the "never published a novel," just partner with someone who has. You could ghost write most of the content and have them personalize it, or just have them introduce you as a trusted colleague. Their role isn't too intense so they get to enjoy easy profits at your expense and you get to use their name to lend credibility to your work.

[Diamond]

To get around the "never published a novel," just partner with someone who has. You could ghost write most of the content and have them personalize it, or just have them introduce you as a trusted colleague. Their role isn't too intense so they get to enjoy easy profits at your expense and you get to use their name to lend credibility to your work.

That's so diabolical it just might work...